


In the winter's light

by garglyswoof



Series: Unidentified [5]
Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 15:30:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17921498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garglyswoof/pseuds/garglyswoof
Summary: Karen gets a call to meet Frank. She doesn't hesitate, though she knows she should.





	In the winter's light

**Author's Note:**

> A picture on tumblr (not of kastle, but it had a dude in a hoodie kissing a girl on the beach and kastle fans ran with it) prompted this. Set after tp1 pre dd s3 because otherwise this wouldn't make sense motivationally. Its still just on the edge, lol, but sometimes you just want to get these lovable idiots together.

An hour’s subway ride has taken Karen to another planet - the unmoving ferris wheel casting its shadow across her face, and wind whipping through the wooden supports of a coaster, its cars sitting idle. The whole place gives her the creeps, to tell you the truth; so transient-feeling, like a city upended in the midst of an apocalypse. She spots the Nathan’s Hot Dog sign, half-wonders if there will be half-eaten dogs on unfinished plates if she draws close. New York interrupted.

Or just Coney Island in the winter, devoid of humanity since it’s 10 degrees outside and most people are sane enough to keep off the waterfront. She stabs her hands deeper in her pockets, ducks her head into her wool trenchcoat, wishing she hadn’t lost her scarf on the train.

Temperature outside: 10 degrees. Temperature on the N train? Volcano hot.

She scans the waterline, tracks back to the subway and the gate that had screeched open on unoiled hinges, resists the urge to check her phone. He’d said he’d meet her here, and Frank wasn’t one for follow-up messages. Just the thought of it makes her smile, that they’re here now, in this place where she has a space in her head for Frank Castle’s communication preferences. That he knows something about hers, too, after she’d sleepily asked him to never call early on the weekend unless someone was dying. Which in Frank’s world wasn’t even close to inconceivable, but still.

Her hair is whipping against her face now, the blond flag of it striking against the dishwater sky. She tries to tuck it into her coat, irritated at how unprepared she is for this. He’d called her and she’d come running and she’d do it all over again as she knows now he would for her. She just wishes she’d brought a hair tie. And a hat. And that scarf.

Still, she’s a Vermont girl born and bred, used to colder winters than this, and she tugs up the collar of her coat, walks down to the water’s edge and simply wishes Frank would hurry the hell up.

“This is a much better place to meet in the summer, I swear,” Frank says from behind her and she jumps, her hand drifting to her purse, then back when she recognizes his voice. She turns and he’s grinning at her, and it’s one of those smiles that you can’t deny, a full-toothed smile that narrows his eyes and crinkles the corners and refuses to let you not respond with the same. So she does.

“I don’t know,” she says with a shrug and that smile, “I’m kinda digging the post-apocalyptic vibes.” She turns and starts walking, because she’s still not sure what this is and she’s afraid to ask. Afraid that he needs something she won’t be willing to provide. Afraid that’s all he wants. It’s easier not to look at him directly.

She hazards a glance as he keeps pace with her, his profile striking beneath the layers, a ball cap tight above his brow and hoodie pulled down low. His beard is back and the thought screams across her brain before she can stop it, how that scruff would feel against her skin. She shivers, and he notices, linking her arm in his and rubbing at her hand to try to give a little warmth.

“I’m sorry, let’s get off the beach at least.”

“No,“ she says quickly, because she’s building this up and she wants to rip the band-aid off. “Just, what do you need, Frank?”

He stops then and she does too from his grip on her arm. “I - look Karen… Shit,” He laughs then, short and self-deprecating. “I guess I deserve that, yeah?” He reaches his other arm out, grabs at her coat and turns her to face him. His eyes are flickering over her face, for a moment lingering on her lips. “Honestly, I- I just wanted to see you, Karen. I’m just, uh, shit at picking meeting locations, you know? Even with half the city wanting me dead, I coulda found something better.”

He’s babbling but it’s ok, because she hasn’t gotten past the first sentence. “Why?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean why did you want to see me?” Maybe it’s unfair to push him, maybe it’s too early to press despite the things that swirl in her head, despite her memory of the elevator, the air weighted with what lay between them. Maybe it’s wrong, but she doesn’t care.

He ducks his head, turns away to study something on the far shoreline and each beat of silence sounds her regret until he speaks again. “Because,” he breathes at a whisper, “I've been thinking, yeah? When I was talking with Sarah you know she was missing her husband so bad-”He pauses, head bobbing from side to side as he gathers his words and Karen's heart lodges somewhere behind her throat.

"I told her, yeah, that you gotta find something, gotta...have something to care about. And she, she asked me if I had and I-" He cuts off again, sweeps a hand across, encompassing the rocks, the sea, coming back to clutch his hoodie where his heart lies beneath the layers. The gesture is so awkward, so unlike his controlled physicality that it hammers the truth of his words home. “I, Karen, I think - you’re the something else there is to this world now.” He stares down at his feet, rasps out the close, “For me.”

Her breath is a sharp inhale that cuts across the sound of the water lapping on the shore and she is in his arms and her hair is circling up and out and he leans in, he can’t help it, can he ever with her? He leans in and kisses her on the cheek, like he did weeks ago, like he wants to do forever - the thought is terrifying but it’s there, it’s real in his head. She shivers again, and it’s still not from the cold, her arms reaching up to circle his neck, tipping her forehead to meet his own because there’s something in her that wants these things to always be at the core of them, together.

It’s in the shadow of the ferris wheel then, in this place that lies in the city and without, it’s here where the wind whips and the cold bites and their lips touch, softly.


End file.
